Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

@Dezzy the mechanics are different though. Large worlds and being published by Nintendo are irrelevant, unless you drink the fanboy kool ade. (Edit: actually Saga 1 and 2 came to DS in Japan).

I consider the story to be what is important. Xenoblade was only named that due to Iwata wanting to honor Takahashi's work with Xenogears and Xenosaga. It was originally to be called "Monado".

XC2 follows the themes of the Xeno games, albeit not to the philosophical heights of the previous games.

@Trajan

Large worlds is definitely not irrelevant. That was one of the main draws of the games in the first place, that it was kinda the first to do a JRPG take on the mostly western open-world RPGs.

Also the stories are mostly just about the characters interactions. All that grand philosophical shtick only comes into either story right at the end. It's not really what they're ABOUT in any meaningful sense. I wouldn't enjoy them if they were. Stories mostly based on philosophy tend to be bad. Too abstract.

@Dezzy If you are a fan of XC2 I recommend you check them out. I can't show you where you are wrong without spoiling everything.

But yes, Xenogears and saga are predecessors to XC2.

hello everyone and help: i just finished this awesome game, put in a little over 200 hours with all the cool blade quests, etc. So I opened my physical copy of Torna, and it came with the dlc download codes. My question is, now that it's downloaded, am i supposed to start New Game +, or can i backtrack on my previous game. I really don't want to start over...

@Dezzy I mean, sure, Xenoblade 2 is closer to the first game than it is to, say, Dragon Quest XI. But the two are still different enough that people can easily like one and dislike the other.

@Cotillion Xenoblade 1 isn't a bad game, but I think Xenoblade 2 improves on it in almost every way. I like the characters, plot, setting (the titans swimming above the clouds are incredibly cool), music, character design, combat system, treatment of side-quests, and the blade system more than equivalent aspects of Xenoblade 1. I felt like both XCX and XC2 made good use of their large, open areas, whereas the openness in the first game felt much less meaningful, as they was really very little to find or do in all that expansiveness.

@dustinb12

An option for Torna appears on the main menu for the main game if you downloaded it digitally.
It runs independently. You don't need have completed XC2 or anything.

I know the combat mechanics in the game but I'm really confused on how to do blade combos. I can do blade specials fine but how do you combine them together to do combos.

@Dezzy thanks. I got both games physical for Christmas, never bothered to open Torna until yesterday, where i found the download code. My fault. I went ahead with Torna, maybe ill come back to do some side quests.

@Fujin 200 hours and i never really understood that. There are a few short Youtube vids that explain it.

So you don't have to do blade combos in the game. You can just use specials and be ok

@Fujin

You need blade combos to beat the tougher bosses really. They combine with chain attacks to be devastating. Otherwise you're gonna do a lot of grinding.

You just have to do the special attacks based on the elements suggested in the tree that pops up in the top right corner, where each proceeding attack has to be a high level than the previous. So if you look at this example below. Level 1 was a fire special, which started the chain off. Then you need a Level 2 fire or water to continue it. Then if you went with fire Level2, you need either fire or light Level 3. And if you went with water level 2, you need fire or ice Level3.

The real benefit is that completing the combo adds an elemental orb onto the enemy, which can you used to extent Chain Attacks to make them super deadly.

It can be alot to learn, that's for sure. Thankfully I came to the game off of Final Fantasy XIV, which also has a bunch of gameplay elements to keep track of, so I got on okay. I would definitely recommend fully learning the Blade combo system, though. Once you start being able to chain up elemental orbs, the game becomes super satisfying, and stronger enemies start seeming like less of a threat

Do you have to have specific blades in battle to do different blade combos that correspond with each element?

Well, specific in the sense that you need a blade that corresponds with the element, but not any one specific blade. if you see in the bottom left of Dezzy's screenshot, each blade has an element icon next to it's name, so to accomplish a combo, you need to match what's on the upper right with the current blade you're using.So, for example, in Dezzy's screenshot, he just did a level 1 special with a fire blade, so now he can choose whether to do a level 2 special with Pyra (or another fire blade), or a level 2 special with a water blade, like Dromarch on Nia.

@Fujin

Not specific blades, just different elements. Your 3 blades should always have 3 different elements (so should your teammates blades), so that it opens up the maximum number of possible blade combos.

It automatically handles your teammates for you though. So if the the left or right trigger attacks come up, corresponding to your 2 other party members, it means they have a Special available at the right level for the combo.
So the only thing you need to make sure of is that your own specials are the correct level for a combo. So if you need fire at Level 3, activating fire at Level 1 will just cancel the combo. (but not in the other direction, a Level 3 fire can count as Level 2 or Level 1)

I only see the blades left trigger special come up and the right trigger doesn't.

@Fujin I think the easiest way to help you out with your questions is to find out where you are in the game (e.g. chapter number). The game introduces mechanics as the story progresses so some of the stuff @Dezzy is talking about may be unavailable to you.

@Fujin

Do you have 3 party members?

@Fujin no, i went the whole game not understanding, or taking the time to, and i did many many combos. Just got lucky. Thanks to this explanation and the one given in Torna dlc, i really get it. It's easier to pull off on a difficult fight that takes awhile. Thanks everyone for the help!

@Dezzy at the moment no.

@Grumblevolcano I'm in chapter 3 at the moment. I pretty much know the combat system but the explanation of blade combos did not help too much during the tutorials in the game. Though I actually did a blade combo yesterday by accident lol. With all this confusion I'm starting to figure things out by practicing in long battles and using your advice posted on here. Chain combos look easy to pull off since you just need to max your party gauge and press the plus button on the joycons.